Amid the territorial dispute in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) and reports they could be spying in Tubbataha Reef, Chinese military officials on Monday joined an 11-nation roundtable in Quezon City on disaster response.
The Chinese crew of a fishing boat that ran aground on Tubbataha Reef last week could have been checking to see if the Americans had installed “military equipment” in the protected marine sanctuary where a US Navy minesweeper got stuck on an atoll nearly three months ago, a Philippine military officer said Sunday.
Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario has assailed China for purportedly undermining the rule of law for insisting its territorial claims over the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea).
Forty US aircraft, including a squadron of F/A-18 Hornet jet fighters, are flying into the Philippines starting Friday for annual joint exercises with the Philippine military, amid a North Korean threat to launch nuclear strikes against the United States and US moves to strengthen its regional defenses in the Pacific.
The Sultanate of Sulu on Monday confirmed Malaysian authorities had arrested a nephew of Sultan Jamalul Kiram III but denied the detained Filipino was involved in the incursion into Sabah last month.
The Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) distanced themselves, on Sunday, from the reported negotiations and payment of a P4-million ransom for the freedom of Australian Warren Richard Rodwell, who was released by his Abu Sayyaf captors on Saturday.
The Philippine military intelligence is checking reports that the leader of the armed group from the sultanate of Sulu that sparked the Sabah crisis has returned and is hiding in southern Philippines.
Malaysia’s filing of terrorism and waging war charges against eight Filipinos “is illegal” and tantamount to “usurpation” of the powers of Sulu Sultan Jamalul Kiram III, Abraham Idjirani, spokesman for the sultanate of Sulu and North Borneo, said Thursday.
Is President Aquino listening to advice from a Malaysian sultan in dealing with the Sabah crisis?
A lawyer was to appear at the National Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday to file an affidavit on a plot allegedly drawn up by the Malaysian military to kill Sultan Jamalul Kiram III of Sulu and his supporters, Kiram’s daughter said.
The daughter of Sulu Sultan Jamalul Kiram III on Wednesday accused President Benigno Aquino III of listening to the advice of Sultan Ibrahim Ismail of the sultanate of Johor, Malaysia regarding the Sabah crisis.
An alleged foreign hit squad has arrived in the country to assassinate Sulu Sultan Jamalul Kiram III and his adviser Pastor “Boy” Saycon, according to sultanate spokesperson Abraham Idjirani.
